(All characters in this story are real. All events are true, except that they might have been dramatised for effect. No animals were harmed during this episode. Human egos were however terribly harmed)
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Gregory Peck riding away into the sun in McKenna’s Gold is still firmly etched in my memory, fifty two years after the iconic movie’s release. And of Clint Eastwood’s horse’s amble in the introductory scene of The Good The Bad And The Ugly. Several decades later, some of the sheen on these macho-men wore off when I watched at Universal Studios, how many such scenes were shot - it was almost comedic to watch heroes ride those dummy horses on spring mounted poles. My fascination with these magnificent beasts however never waned. I always imagined myself riding one of these majestic stallions, jumping over hedges, taking a sharp bend, before riding off into the sunset. Alas, the closest that city-bred folks like me come to a horse is either as a dulha (TamBram dulhas incidentally never trust a steed; it is always a red Standard Herald convertible, with a broken door), or as a kid in Juhu beach, riding a poor, shaggy pony that has never ever seen good days. Anyway, let me not digress much.
So, when a few of my colleagues from my first job in 1983 decided to use a long-weekend for a trip to Matheran, I got super excited. One of the highlights for a Bambaiya visiting Matheran is the famous horse ride. For a pittance, we could ride some real good looking horses for hours on narrow, winding mud trails that hug the cliff edge. Or so we thought.
We packed our bags one Friday night, hopped into a late night train at Dadar, hopped off at Neral several hours later, and reached Matheran early morning; if I am not mistaken, no automobiles were allowed into Matheran those days, so one had to trek the last few kilometres. We checked into our boarding quarters, caught on some sleep, had a hearty breakfast, and went off to take in the sights and sounds of the hill station over the next couple of days - One Tree Hill, Echo Point, Rambagh Point, Charlotte Lake were all taken in. The second half of Day 2 was reserved for the much anticipated horse ride.
So that afternoon, the magnificient seven dressed up for the occasion - jeans, tees, sports shoes, panama hat, and a bottle of water, and landed at the “stables”. We quickly negotiated a great deal, and went about the job of “picking our horses”. The tallest and the heftiest of us, Ramesh (no relation to the Ramesh in my earlier story) went first and picked the biggest bloke - a large horse, with gleaming black fur, possibly imagining himself to be Phantom on his steed Hero. Rajiv took a relatively mellow guy with brown fur, Sudhir was fine with anything, Piyush was “alloted” a silent bored-looking fellow, Ravikumar went for a brown, bold-and-beautiful guy, and finally I and another guy picked what was left. We mounted our respective steeds, and started on our adventure.
It is said a horse strikes up a wonderful bond with its rider, and this bond translates to a seamless transfer of the rider’s intent into the horse’s action. But a Matheranian horse sees way too many tourists pretending to be riders, and for very short periods of time, that it is just not interested in developing any kind of rapport with stereotypical tourists - loud, obnoxious, pot-bellied, pan-chewing men. So they go back to basics - “riders come and go, so don’t bother. Listen to the owner, and do only his bidding. If he is not around, follow your instinct”.
But if seven brave men tell these owners to back off, the owners are more than happy to puff on their bidis and lounge around, knowing full well what an ass these riders are going to make of themselves. We had of course no inkling of what was in store for us.
So when Ramesh hrrmphed his majestic steed, the steed decided to show who the boss really was - he just lifted his front legs to 30 degrees, almost throwing Ramesh off the saddle, and bolted, with Ramesh hanging on for dear life. Horses have a profound and quick way of dealing with egos. Ramesh’s ego was not just bruised, it had reached rock bottom, and had even started digging.
The other horses had by then dutifully trotted off, horsemen supposedly in charge. My horse was moody; it cared two hoots for what I said or did - in his short life, he had seen enough amateurs trying their spurs and stirrups on him; he was not going to be daunted by those anymore. So after ignoring my attempts (and later pleas) for a while, he suddenly took off to join his other friends ahead of him, for his own version of adventure. My fate was no better than Ramesh’s, except that my years of riding on the footboard of a Kolkata private tin bus came in handy. I clung onto saddle and reins just a tad better. Just when I was righting myself, my guy braked, bringing me face to face with my animal; we of course in an awkward position, legs up in the air, body dancing somewhere on the animal, and face almost kissing the animal's face. It was at that exact moment I understood why Hollywood prefered wooden horses to real ones.
In a few minutes, we all had somehow gathered our wits, figured out that our job was to sit quietly on our horses, and let the animal decide on route, pace, and destination. Six of us were accounted for; Piyush and his bored partner were missing though. A kilometer further, the mystery was solved. Piyush was quietly sitting on his mount facing the rock wall which was one horse head away, perpendicular to the trail we were all on. The horse had decided that it needed a bio break. Just as we wondered why our man was examining the rock so closely (hyroglyphs maybe), Piyush loudly wailed “Yaar, yeh gadha toh sun hee nahin raha hai meri baat. Mein toh isi position mein latka hua hoon char minute se. Kuch bhi move kiya toh saley ko gussa aa jaata hai, aur mujhe phenkne ki koshish karta hai”. Brave we surely were, but this problem had to wait for another day. We continued on our path minus Piyush. Rajiv and his horse, leading the magnificient six now had a strange problem. His horse would listen, not to his commands, but to mine, who was tailing the pack. Mine of course would listen to none. So when I cajoled my horse with some magic words to pick up pace, Rajiv’s horse obliged much to his chagrin, and galloped away. “Saaley Naresh”, screamed a panicking Rajiv, “tuh chup rah thoda. Mera ghoda teri boli pe bhag raha hai”. So I shut up so that both horses were not too excitable.
Ramesh’s horse in the meantime decided it needed some fun. So it suddenly took off on the narrow mountain trail, outpacing everyone. It passed Ravi’s horse, shoving horse and horseman periliously close to the edge of the cliff. Ravi was a nervous wreck, invoking god, and mouthing invectives simultaneously. Ramesh assured him that he was a mere reluctant passenger on a runaway four-legged train, and had no part to play in this dangerous game of “Who hits rock bottom first”. That hardly pacified a very harried, and worried Ravi.
This drama continued for another 5 or 6 kilometers - with our horses now galloping, now crawling, now trotting, but never stopping even once at any of those scenic spots we were promised we would stop by enroute to the final destination. Just as we reached the destination, the horse owners magically appeared out of nowhere, took charge of their horses, helped us out of the saddle, and relieved us of what they considered fair wages. A few minutes after we paid up, Piyush’s horse sauntered in lazily, let him get off, and went over to nuzzle with his partners.
Thus ended the Maginificient Seven’s Experiments With Riding. We walked all the way back to our hotel, nursing a set of very very sore rumps, happy to be alive and in one piece, recalling the events of the past hour or two, and convincing ourselves that we had some great fun.
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